Ave Aventador: V-12 in Lambo’s new hybrid bull will rev to 8500

11 months since we spotted a test mule of the Aventador’s successor, and Lamborghini still hasn’t shown us the car undisguised. Not on purpose, anyway.

Spy photographers sneaked our first look inside Lambo’s next apex predator for the streets. The shots focus on the digital display behind the steering wheel, which immediately confirms what CEO Stephen Winkelmann promised in July of 2021: The car will combine a naturally aspirated V-12 engine with an electric motor.

This hybrid setup is near-mandatory for any vehicle that aims at Europe’s elite: Many urban centers enforce low-emissions zones, which typically apply to foreign and local vehicles alike. A plug-in hybrid supercar offers the best of both worlds: The extroverted performance of a combustion engine and a zero-emissions electric mode for downtown cruising. (Read: shopping.)

Hence the “Citta” in the screen’s lower left-hand corner. It’s Italian for “city,” most likely a drive mode that relies exclusively on electric power below a certain speed.

We can also glimpse two screens on the center console. Unless we’re mistaking a test computer rig for a production touchscreen, this twin-screen setup suggests that Lamborghini is doing away with the promontory of buttons currently jutting from the middle of Avendator’s dashboard. We’re all for the drama of a flip-up, fighter-jet-style starting procedure, but we’d bet that most Lamborghini owners’ phones are larger than that center screen.

Enough about the electric bits, you say? Squint at that tachometer and rejoice: This Lambo’s V-12 will still shriek above 8000 rpm. The red hashes begin at 8500, by our count, which is 200 lower than the redline of the Aventador this car is set to replace.

The Aventador, for context, first appeared in production form at the 2011 Geneva Auto Show (RIP) to replace the Murciélago. Lamborghini riffed on the original all-wheel-drive, 690-hp model by varying engine output, dropping the top, and adding track-focused kit—sometimes, all in the same model. Expect the same sort of cadence for this mystery bull, which we expect to see in full in March of 2023.